A history of Bygonebytes

The site was first set up in 1996 and has evolved
from 'Morts Abode' to 'On-line Computer Museum' to what it's now called
'Bygonebytes'. Through this time it has been hosted under various addresses
but has settled into its bygonebytes address since 2007.

Updated the copyright message to automatically select the year - one less chore for the beginning of each year!

December 2018 - Added my Maplin 3800/5600s construction manual.

Added updated photo of the VCF boards and new photo of built Joy lever board.

Added final screen layout for Sequencer. Also wiring details from Sequencer to Keyboad Controller. Program written for Play/Record Sequencer.

Added photos of the assembled Maplin 5600 VCF board and testing of the I/O on the RPi Interface board - level shifting from 14V CMOS to 3.3V and back again.

Added photos of the Maplin 5600 External Inputs board and the second VCF.

November 2018 - I have added and amended a lot of information on the "meters" page including a Wireless World digital frequency meter, a waveform generator and 2018 equivalents of both.
I have added the magazine article for the ETI Power supplies.

Added progress photos of the Maplin 5600 synth.

Updated web pages to make them more bandwidth friendly especially since I've been adding a lot photos for the Maplin 5600 Synth build.

Added my Pi 3A+ to both the Pi and Maplin 5600 pages as this will be the basis of the synth sequencer. This version of the Pi was released just at the right time!

Updated the increasingly inaccurate menus.

The last of the boards for the Maplin 5600 Synthesiser have arrived, the Raspberry Pi Interface, the Binary Encoder, the VCF, the Joystick interface and the External Inputs.

Added the Raspberry Pi 3A+ and 7" Touchscreen combination for the synthesiser sequencer.

Built, tested and mounted the Maplin 5600 Raspberry Pi Interface on the touchscreen. Finished a first pass of the sequencer software.

October 2018 - I have updated the Maplin 5600 Synth page with more photos and details of the build including the Transient A/B, Retrigger, Reverb and Phase, Voltage Controlled Pan and Ancillary and the Keyboard Controller LED strip.

October 2018 - Added a short video for the Synchronised RPi drum machines and sequencers.

October 2018 - Added a short video for the RPi Drummer, from previous videos it is obvious that the sound quality
was very poor when recorded with the phone microphone so this time I recordered the sound seperately and dubed it onto the picture - much better.

October 2018 - Four more boards have arrived for the Maplin 5600 Synthesiser, Keyboard Controller, Transient/Envelope,
Voltage Controlled Amplifier and Sample and Noise. The Mixer is built and ready for testing and the next five boards are in production,
Transient A/B, Retrigger, Reverb and Phase, Voltage Controlled Pan and Ancillary and the Keyboard Controller LED strip.
The Raspberry Pi interface has been designed. The Mixer board has been fully tested.

September 2018 - Good progress on the 40 year old Maplin 5600 Synthesiser. Power supply
and oscillators built and tested, a further four boards in production and five other board layouts complete.

August 2018 - Started a new project - building a 40 year old Maplin 5600 Synthesiser!

July 2018 - Updated a number of pages to bring some photos on to the page instead of having to click a link.

July 2018 - 24 Channel upgrade for my 9 Channel Mixer!

June 2018 - Another new project for the Raspberry Pi - an 8 Pad Electronic Drum Kit.

May 2018 - Some general updates to the Raspberry Pi and Odroid Pages.

April 2018 - A small upgrade to the sequencer/drum machine refresh scripts improving the usability of the loop control button(s).

April 2018 - The Quiz Panel has been upgraded for six contestants using a Pi Zero and a home brew HAT.

April 2018 - I have just added a complete set of refreshed sequencer programs, just a cosmetic update to make them look a bit more up to date and a bit less like the standard OS. There are a few limitations within the Pi/Python/Tkinter setup but hopefully not too noticeable.

April 2018 - Synchronising the Sequencers and Drum Machines, all the sequencer and drum machine programs re-written so one drum machine program controls the triggering of the other sequencers and drum mamchines.

January 2018 - My first attempt at programming a sampled sound drum machine for the Raspberry Pi!

December 2017 - I'm working on a new project - a Drum Machine which will play sampled sounds. I've added a screenshot as an example of how it'll look.

November 2017 - Added some pictures for my Tektronix test gear and a few of my PSU's. The PSU's are mostly built round the Electronics Today International (ETI) project 111 from January 1973.

November 2017 - I have updated the Thermometer 'with display' listing to include logging of events such as the LED display going out of range and if the temperature drops below Zero Degrees.

November 2017 - A few months ago I tried booting a Raspberry Pi from an old HD which was successful but with the problem that the HD was too slow at starting up for it to be reliable. I have now swapped that drive for an SSD which works beautifully.

August 2017 - Moved web/email provider and fixed many links. Some due to my typing and others due to the new provider using Linux -
case sensitive! which I suppose is my problem too due to my inconsistancy in naming files.

July 2017 - Added a small section on the Raspberry Pi page about booting a Pi from a Hard Drive. Removed the page counter as it is
no longer supported by my provider.

July 2017 - A few minor changes - I added a picture of my BBC B+/Master/Electron setup and couple of pictures of my latest
changes to my 10 channel mixer extension - adding a LED VU Meter and a Mute button to each channel.

July 2017 - Added a second Raspberry Pi Thermometer listing which adds a window with the current temperature - useful for a quick
check via VNC. Updated the 8-bit Acorn webring on the home page.

July 2017 - Updated the Raspberry Pi Thermometer code, schematic and photos. Steamlined the code, extended the temperature range by 2
Degrees and flash the LED's at the extremities when it goes out of range.

June 2017 - New Project - A Raspberry Pi Thermometer for switching fans on and off.

May 2017 - Finished the Raspberry Pi Quiz control unit and updated the Raspberry Pi page.

February 2017 - Removed guest book and added contact info on the home page.

July 2016 - Major update to the Raspberry Pi Maplin 3800 Sequencer, v3.0

June 2016 - Added my latest project to the Raspberry Pi page - A Sequencer for the Maplin 3800 Synthesiser. Also updated
the Event Logger after some practical experience! and the home page.

April 2016 - Updated Raspberry Pi Quiz Control Program so that it can be used without a monitor, starts on !boot and a shutdown
button so the Pi can be gracefully shutdown before unplugging. Also added team colours.

January 2013 - Added Spectrum Service Data to the Spectrum 48K page and the Slogger 1987 catalogue to the electron Page. Fixed a couple of links.

October 2012 - Added RGB TTL cable wiring to Acorn Extras page.
As stated in the Feb. 2007 entry I have updated many photos and have re-drawn most of the circuit diagrams publishing them in pdf instead of
jpg. Also corrected lots of errors on the diagrams which came about when converting between CAD formats.

July 2012 - Added a page for my Raspberry Pi

April 2011 - A complete re-design of the web site and I also have my old URL www.walkerworks.co.uk back after it has been out
in the wilderness for seven years! (another story..)

June 2010 - Temporarily removed the PC section as I wasn't inspired
to develope it further, instead I've added a section on my collection
of old test equipment.

May 2010 - Added 8 Bit Acorn Webring.

April 2009 - Removed contact email address and replaced it with a Feedback Form.

February 2007 - Having looked at all the changes in content and hosting that
has occurred over the past ten years I feel it is time to do a bit of a tidy up. The
first items are the URL and site name. My attempt at a bit of humour with the URL
seems a bit feeble now so I have corrected the spelling with a new URL www.bygonebytes.co.uk. The old name 'Online
Computer Museum' does not describe the content (probably never has!) so the site
from now on will simply be known as 'Bygonebytes'.

There are a few 'features' that no longer work, the hit counter, web ring and the Guest
Book has vanished so these will either be fixed or removed.

I have noted that a lot of the pictures aren't up to todays standard, the site was
originally build in the time of low bandwidth (14.4K/28.8K modems) so file sizes had to be
kept small. Where possible I'll update.

1999 - 2000 Mostly left alone while I concentrated on other
projects.Copied lots of BBC documents/manuals to the BBC Documentation
Project - see links
page

1997 - 1999 Various updates and changes of Hosts
until settled on Freenetname (walkerworks.co.uk) and NTLworld (walkerworks.ntlworld.com).

First created some time in 1996 on Demon Internet when I had an
Amiga 1200/Zoom 14.4K modem entitled 'Mort's Abode'. For some reason the
pages are still active although I cannot get access to update them now.(About
a week after I wrote this (April 2001) they disappeared.)